Republic Day and Recollections

I used to enjoy the Republic Day celebration that follows Christmas and New Year’s celebrations when I was a kid. It was like seeing beautiful maiden all in a row. The series of celebrations were what we looked up to when we were kids in the cosy little town of Tamenglong in Manipur. January 26 also coincides with our kite flying season just before school reopens. We used to make colourful kites. Some that would never fly against our expectations. Some fly with flirtatious passion, while some fly scared. Some are quite friendly, flapping their long tail and wings as our joy soars with our beaming pride. Good kite makers were also our seasonal heroes in those days. The lessons that we learnt during our kite flying days were never taught in the classroom. Kite making was art and science in itself. We would make thin sticks out of bamboo, light enough to fly with our precious colourful paper. The frame would consist of one straight stick and another that would gently bow, which would be held together with sticky rice. And when the kite is ready we whistle softly and melodiously to call the wind to lift our kites in the air. We used to wait a while with our pointing musical lips for the wind to respond. It never fails us. When the wind blows, we would burst with shouts and laughter’s. We were not merely kite makers. I realized we were also nature’s children. Seeing our kites fly in high air was our taste of independence and liberation.

Our house, in Tamenglong, sit just besides the district public ground. Small hill stood behind our house, where we fly our kites. The ground served as the venue for the annual Republic Day celebration as well as the Independence Day. The march pass fascinated the band of kite flyers a lot as much as it does to the town folks. It was our dream to march in concert while the town folks gathered to watch. On India’s Independence Day and Republic Day, then, everyone would come to watch the march pass and other events that filled the day. I got the dream chance early when I was chosen to be part of the school contingent. I was just a class one student in United Baptist School, now United Builder’s School. There were little things to celebrate if one is part of the school contingent; one is excused from missing the first two classes, one or two days to school without school uniform, and then there used to be the lightest refreshment that was served for all its namesake.

Republic day was usually greeted with high spirits. The town folks would come well dressed for the rare unchristian occasion in the Christian district. Some would come neat with their Sunday dress. Many of the kids would come wearing their Christmas dresses. I remember my parents would be seated in our front porch taking out all the chairs for our relatives and other audiences too. I knew they were waiting for their little boy and his contingent to march pass one corner of the ground that was closer than a stone throw from our house. Today, the house and the hill, our play-mound, have been already floored to give way for the extension of the public ground.

In 1990 we moved to Churachandpur where my father was transferred. Then came January 26 again. I don’t know what must have taken place as we live far from the district public ground. But I remember its observance and celebration was boycotted by armed groups who are demanding for ‘Homeland’. New assertions and the languages they employed invaded every visible space. We surrender dearly. I wonder if we will ever get them back again. I was surprised then. But today boycott has become a part of the two celebrated national holiday in Manipur. The 59th Republic Day, which ended yesterday, was boycotted again. It stops surprising me now. Rather it has become too routine and usual.

Day before yesterday, on January 25, 2008, I met more than 50 mothers from Manipur who landed in Delhi to campaign against Militarization, Impunity and Armed Forces Special Powers Act that is imposed in Manipur. Bruised mothers brim with grim experiences under the “draconian law.” Mothers who are living big loss life. They pour out their dark and black stories, words of appeal and demand for the repeal of the infamous Act. They said that Republic Day has no meaning for mothers in Manipur who are denied of their rights, security and dignity. Truly, it is no time to celebrate for them. So they came to Delhi with their burden of plights, to find a meaning to their lives and the generations to come.

Through the years, the public has visibly withdrawn from celebrating Republic Day or Independence Day.

Popular democracy and the institutions hatched by constitutional democracy are in irrecoverable mess. Today fear and threats have invaded all the space for any possible celebration. But I have more than one experiences tugged safely in my memories that are getting blurred.

(Delhi, January 26, 2008)